Joe Bachner
M. Bachner Julianna Hartig |job = Electrician Construction worker |path = Serial Killer Serial Rapist Abductor |signature = Proxy torture by stabbing with an icepick |mo = Abduction and torture Rape Stabbing |victims = 4-5 killed 3 abducted 1 attempted 1 assaulted |status = Incarcerated |actor = Taymour Ghazi Sunny Suljic |appearance = "The Edge of Winter" }} Joe Bachner is a serial killer, serial rapist, and abductor who appears through flashbacks in Season Nine episode "The Edge of Winter". He is the dominant partner of a two-person killing team also consisting of Daria Samsen. Background Born on July 13, 1974, and raised in Pennsylvania, Bachner lost his parents in a car accident on May 7, 1980, when he was six years old. As a result, he was sent to live with his aunt, Julianna Hartig, a nurse who lived in Hamilton, New York. Hartig was an abusive alcoholic who once locked him up inside a shed and starved him for days. Whenever she got mad, she unleashed bees on him, and Bachner subsequently suffered from hundreds of bee-stings. Social Services eventually found out about the abuse after Bachner arrived at school covered in bee-stings and apparently arrested Hartig. On June 23, 2010, Bachner got a job as an electrician for a company called Conway Electric and also worked several random construction jobs; he was also apparently an avid gun owner. He also developed a small rap-sheet of battery charges and also an incident in 2010, where he abducted a woman, but she survived and then dropped the charges against him, likely out of fear of retaliation from him. On February 28, 2012, Hartig died from cardiac arrest, depriving Bachner of any chance of getting his revenge. A month later, he set his sights on a woman named Daria Samsen, who was a medical student and therefore reminded him of Hartig. He managed to abduct Samsen from the diner she worked at after charming her, before holding her captive for several months, raping and torturing her until she was subjugated into complete obedience towards him. Bachner eventually decided to worsen the torture by abducting random people and torturing them with Samsen's forced assistance before murdering them. By January 2013, he killed three victims and had a fourth, a woman named Carrie, held in captivity alongside Samsen. He initially dumped the bodies of his first two fatal victims in isolated public areas, but he apparently decided to let the town know of the abuse he suffered by placing the body of the third victim posed in the middle of a cornfield, which would lead to the summoning of the BAU. One night, Carrie managed to smuggle the key to the tool-shed she and Samsen were being kept in, and the two women managed to escape. However, Bachner was awakened by their sounds and wounded Carrie with a shot from a rifle, but Samsen, apparently having a brief moment of clarity, continued running and successfully escaped. Enraged by this newest development, Bachner relocated himself and Carrie to the unoccupied house of a client of his coworker Coby Peters before abducting another woman, Melissa Coleman, and then killing her. He then abducted a stranded motorist named Lionel the following day and took him to the house, where he tried to get Carrie to assist him in the torture, but apparently failed. During the night, the BAU, having identified Bachner as the unsub with Samsen's assistance and also pinpointing where he was, stormed the house. Bachner quickly stabbed Carrie with an icepick and fled, but he was pursued by Rossi. He tried to shoot him but was shot and injured by him. Afterwards, Bachner was arrested and presumably incarcerated. The Edge of Winter By 2014, Bachner's trial is coming up, and Morgan interrogates Samsen, whom he has deduced as being his partner during the initial investigation, in hopes of establishing her as a sympathetic witness. However, Samsen confesses that she helped Joe because she "loved him," undermining her credibility. Modus Operandi Bachner targeted random victims, initially luring them from different neighboring cities by charming them into coming with him, but after Samsen's escape, his method of obtaining victims became more unplanned and disorganized. He would find his female victims in bars, while his male victims were found in random locations. He would then hold them captive in a tool-shed for long periods of time (with the exception of Samsen, who was allowed into his house after she became submissive towards him, even in the presence of guests) and torture them in a variety of ways, including brutalizing them, tying them to a radiator, and (in the case of the female victims) raping them. However, his signature method of torture was stabbing them repeatedly in the chest with an icepick (likely as a reference to the bee stings he suffered as a child). Prior to Samsen's escape, he kept three to four victims at once in the shed, including Samsen herself; once a victim died, he would go out to find another one. He initially forced Samsen to assist in the torture, but as she succumbed to Stockholm syndrome, her actions became more willing. After he finished them off by fatally stabbing them with an icepick, Bachner would then dispose of their bodies with Samsen's help. The first two fatal victims were dumped in isolated public areas, but as Bachner evolved, he began leaving them in locations where they would be more easily seen, posing them in order to maximize shock value. When things didn't go his way, he would utilize firearms as a last resort, such as during Carrie's escape attempt and the raid at his client's house by the BAU. Known Victims **August 31: An unspecified charge of battery *2012: **March: Daria Samsen **December 6: Marlene Godfrey **December 15: Chloe Reynolds **December 21: Ben Wilson *2013: **January 1: Carrie **January 9: Melissa Coleman **January 10: ***Lionel ***David Rossi }} Notes *Bachner appears to have been based on at least two unsubs from the show's past: **Season Six ***Lee Mullens ("Remembrance of Things Past") - Both are serial killers and abductors who targeted women (though Bachner also killed a man), worked as electricians, abducted and stabbed their victims to death, had an accomplice (both of whom have the surname), and as such were dominant partners in a killing team, and were both ultimately arrested by Rossi. **Season Seven ***Malcolm Ford ("The Company") - Both are killers, rapists, and abductors who abducted an African-American woman and severely abused them to make them into submissive 'slaves' (giving them both Stockholm syndrome as a result). *According to his employment record, Joe's Social Security number is 987-00-0128. Appearances *Season Nine **The Edge of Winter Category:Criminal Minds Characters Category:Criminals Category:Season Nine Criminals Category:Serial Killers Category:Serial Rapists Category:Abductors Category:Omnivores Category:Incarcerated Criminals Category:Abuse Victims Category:Sadists Category:Captors